Everybody Dies

How old was he? Sixty-one, sixty-two? Something like that. A middle-aged man in a red polo shirt and khakis, wearing an unzipped tan windbreaker He still had most of his hair, though it had crept back some from his forehead and was thi

Ike, of Ike and Mike.

I stood there. People were saying things and they may have been saying some of them to me, but nothing was registering. My eyes were focused on a sentence from the article on home schooling, but that wasn't registering either. I just stood there, and eventually I heard a siren, and eventually the cops showed up.

If only.

If only I'd canceled di

If only we'd gone down to Chinatown. The vegetarian place down there was on Pell Street, up a long flight of narrow stairs. A pro would never hit anybody in a place like that, leaving himself with a tricky escape route.

If only I'd put on different clothes. I've never paid much attention to what I'm wearing, I generally grab the top shirt off the stack. This time the shirt happened to be red, and so did his.

Whoever tagged me from the Parc Vendôme to the Lucky Panda was following a man in a red polo shirt and khaki slacks and a tan windbreaker. And when he (or whoever he called) entered the restaurant himself, he saw a man in those very clothes sitting alone at a table, the only person around who came close to fitting the description. He didn't need to ask to see some ID. He did what he'd come to do and dropped the gun on the floor and took off.

If only he'd taken a good look at Jim first.

If only I'd worn my blazer. So what if it bulged a little over the shoulder holster? I wasn't posing for a layout in GQ.

If only I'd taken a minute to empty my goddamn bladder before I left the house. I'd never have left the table, I'd have been sitting across from Jim when the shooter walked in. Son of a bitch would have thought he was seeing double. He might well have decided to shoot both of us and let God sort us out, and he might have managed it, too, but he'd have had a moment's confusion, a few seconds while he paused and figured it out, and maybe that would have been time enough for me to spot him and go for my own gun.

If only I'd resisted his suggestion to change seats. Jim might have seen the guy walk in, might have had a chance to react. And the shooter, seeing his face instead of the back of his head, might have realized he had the wrong man.

If only I'd skipped washing my hands. Or wiped them on my pants instead of wasting time at the hot-air dryer. I'd have been emerging from the men's room right around the time the shooter was approaching Jim's table. I could have called out a warning, could have drawn my own gun, could have dropped the bastard before he shot my friend.

If only…

If only I'd stood there and taken my beating like a man the other night. It wouldn't have killed me, and that would have been the end of it. I'd have learned my lesson, or seemed to, and they'd have left me alone. But no, I had to be a hero, I had to show off and fight back.

If only I'd been wearing sneakers that night. I was wearing them now. Why couldn't I have been wearing them then? When I stomped the foot of the guy behind me, he'd have grunted and held on, and I'd have earned an extra wallop for my troubles.

If only I'd followed through. If I insisted on fighting back and if I was lucky enough to come out ahead, why couldn't I have finished the job? If only I'd acted on my impulse and kicked the slugger in the head, and kicked him again, and kept at it until I kicked his fucking head in. And put a bullet in the other one's chest while I was at it, and pressed the gun into his buddy's fist. Let the cops figure that one out. With a couple of lowlife skells like that, they wouldn't kill themselves trying.

Oh, hell. If only I'd passed on the case in the first place. Told Mick I didn't want to get involved. I'd wound up telling him that anyway just a day later.

Story of my life, always a day late and a dollar short.

If only I'd fired him as a sponsor. I'd been sober for years, I'd evidently long since mastered the subtle art of not drinking a day at a time, so what did I need with a sponsor? Why prolong the relationship, and why maintain the silly tradition of Chinese Sunday night di

Elaine could have reminded me that I was a married man, that I ought to be having di

If only I'd never picked him as a sponsor in the first place. He'd been the obvious choice, the only person who paid any real attention to me when I started coming to meetings at St. Paul's. I was still drinking on and off at first, not at all sure I wanted to be there and apparently incapable of declaring myself an alcoholic, or indeed of saying anything more than I absolutely had to. When it was my inescapable turn to speak, I'd say, My name is Matt, and I think I'll just listen tonight. I didn't think anyone noticed me, and it was months later before I learned that I'd had an AA sobriquet for a little while there. People referred to me as Matt the Listener.

But he took an interest, always said hello, always passed the time of day. Invited me to join a couple of them for coffee after the meeting. Listened respectfully when I spouted nonsense in the ma

I keep hearing I ought to get a sponsor, I said offhandedly one night. Said it after having rehearsed it for two days. What do you think? I said.

It's probably not a bad idea, he said.

No, I said, about you being my sponsor. What do you think about that?

I think I probably already am, he said. But, he said, if you'd like to make it formal, I'd say it sounds okay to me.

He was just this guy in an old army jacket. For a long time I didn't know what he did for a living, or what life he had outside the AA rooms. Then he led a meeting and I heard his story. And then we got to know each other, and drank gallons of coffee at meetings and after meetings, and sat across the table from each other on hundreds of Sunday nights.

If only I'd picked someone else to be my sponsor, or no one at all. If only I'd looked around that basement room and said thanks but no thanks and gone back out for a drink.

He'd never let me get away with crap like that. You must have one hell of an ego, he told me more than once, to be that hard on yourself. Where do you get off setting yourself such impossibly high standards? Who do you think you are, anyway? The piece of shit the world revolves around?

I said, You mean I'm not?

You're just a man, he said. You're just another alcoholic.

That's all?

That's enough, he said.

If only the past were subject to change.

When TJ has second thoughts at the computer, he can press certain keys and undo the previous action. But, as a pinball addict told me years ago, the trouble with life is there's no reset button.

What's done can never be undone. It's set in concrete, carved in stone.

Omar Khayyam wrote it ages ago, and put it so well that even I can remember the lines:

The Moving Finger writes; and, having writ,

Moves on, nor all your Piety nor Wit

Shall lure it back to cancel half a Line,

Nor all your Tears wash out a Word of it.

If only that were not so.

If only…

I was questioned at length at the crime scene, first by the uniforms who responded to the 911 call, then by somebody in plainclothes. It's impossible to remember the questions and answers because I was only dimly aware of the procedure while it was going on. A portion of my mind was struggling to pay attention, taking in what was being said by others within earshot, monitoring the questions I was asked and the answers I gave. The rest of me was somewhere else, wandering aimlessly through corridors of the past, sending out forays into an alternate future. An if-only future, a future in which, because I'd done something differently, Jim was still alive.